Drive to make first aid training law moves step closer

Her goal to make it law that every person working in a nursery should be trained in first aid has moved a step closer to reality for an award winning woman from Burnley.

After Joanne Thompson was named as Lorraine Kelly’s Inspirational Woman of the Year on national television last week, the number of signatures on her on-line petition to make first aid training compulsory rose by a staggering 14,000 in just three days, bringing the total to 100,000 which is the figure needed for government ministers to debate the issue in Parliament. At the moment the law states that only one member of staff needs to have first aid training. An ecstatic Joanne said: “I am grateful to everyone who signed the on-line petition and also the fact that what we have worked so hard for is moving nearer. We are now planning a meeting with a Government Minister in November and by then I would like even more names on the petition.’’ Joanne, a former pupil of Padiham Green Primary School and Ivy Bank High School, Burnley, founded Millie’s Trust, named in memory of her baby daughter who tragically choked to death at a private nursery in Cheadle Hulme in October, 2012, aged just nine months old. The success of the Trust has been phenomenal, training 5,000 people across the UK and Ireland in first aid. Both Joanne and her husband, Dan, now work for the Trust full time, setting up first aid courses and dealing with the hundreds of emails that flood into the office daily.

Anyone who wishes to sign the petition can do so by logging onto the Millie’s Trust page on facebook.